Breaking bias

Meet the real people fighting to transform the tech workforce. There is no reason we can’t create an industry that is a true representation of society. Together, we can become inclusive to all and bias towards no-one.

Brajesh Bajpai, Group Head of Marketing & Segments at Vodafone got into tech to make fundamental changes at large scale in a sustainable manner.

“We CAN make this world a better place for generation of today AND tomorrow.”

Brajesh will be joining us at Diversity in Tech, on the 15th of June, to discuss how his own personal journey has lead to him to create a diverse formula for his own team.

“Follow Mahatma Gandhi’s advice ‘Be the change that you want to see’ and constantly remind yourself that it is about ‘diversity of thought’ and don’t get swept away by the tokenism of it.”

Jessica Hayes, Head of People, Culture & Talent at Lost My Name thinks the biggest challenge we are facing at the moment is the skills gap.

“Young women aren't being encouraged to enter STEM fields in schooling. It is something I think we will see some negative repercussions from in the coming years. Incentives such as training and tech pushes from the UK Government will take large steps to alleviating some of these issues and will help benefit a diverse workforce.”

Jessica would love to see more and more people focussing on education and training, including losing a stigma towards distance and online learning. In fact, losing stigma towards people who aren't university educated is super beneficial and will help us start to see truly diverse talent!

James Stanbridge, VP at Oracle was inspired to purse a career in tech by watching rockets land men on the moon at the young age of 12. But it is his role as a son, brother, father and VP at Oracle that allow him to live diverse, inclusive principles every minute of every day

“We are all guardians of D&I; imagine what you want to be possible and fight for that. Watch out for D&I being ‘someone else’s issue’- we all own D&I, my favourite campaign is #HeForShe for exactly that reason.”

James has found the biggest business benefits of increasing D&I are seeing more innovation and creativity, while becoming more reflective of customer sets.

“The biggest challenge in the tech sector is creating a diverse and inclusive workforce. Anthropologically speaking, our tribal alliance has served us well, but it is diametrically opposite to diverse and inclusive. Most of us have a very diverse customer set - the closer our workplace looks like our customer, the better we are able to understand and serve those customers. So leave your bias at the door.”